post-pc

Apple (AAPL) held its Q4 2014 earnings call yesterday, and despite (unsurprisingly) record profits from the iPhone and Mac departments, CEO Tim Cook admitted that the iPad isn’t doing as well as it used to — and, rather amusingly, the stagnation of iPad sales seems to be rooted in the same underlying cause of slowing PC sales: After you’ve bought an iPad, there’s very little reason to upgrade.

Back in 2010, a few months after the iPad’s release, Steve Jobs predicted that tablets would eventually overtake PCs. Now, according to updated figures from Gartner, after five years of rather crazy tablet growth and slowly declining PC sales, 2015 will be the year that Jobs’ post-PC dream is finally realized. In 2015, Gartner predicts a total of 320 million tablet sales, versus just 316 million PC sales (desktops and laptops) — and that’s an optimistic figure, too, that presumes businesses will continue to upgrade to Windows 7, and that Windows 9 (probably due in 2015) will drive increased PC sales.

If you thought that Microsoft’s tablet-that-turns-into-a-laptop was cool, the Asus Transformer Book V — unveiled at Computex 2014 in Taiwan — will blow your mind. Like previous 2-in-1 Transformer Books, there’s a Windows tablet that clicks into a laptop base — but now there’s also a slot on the back of the tablet for an Android smartphone! All told, this hideous three-in-one device has five modes of operation: a Windows laptop, a Windows tablet, an Android smartphone, an Android tablet, and an Android laptop. There’s no word on pricing or release date.

Microsoft’s head of devices, Julie Larson-Green, has foretold of a future where there aren’t three versions of Windows. Most journalists are taking this to mean that Windows RT is at the end of its short and pitiful life. I think this is bigger than that, though: This is confirmation that all three of Microsoft’s operating systems are going to be killed off, replaced with a new, consolidated and unified OS that spans phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops.

It is never wise to invest too much time, energy, or faith into a single point of failure. You might have the fastest and most efficient car in the world — but if it breaks, you have nothing. Even so, with ubiquitous, global services like the internet and the electrical grid, we are fully invested because by doing so our quality of life is massively improved. What happens, though, when the machine finally stops and we’re left without these civilization-sustaining services?

The second screen market — using your phone as a companion display for your TV or computer — is just now emerging. At first, it seemed silly, but then we all quickly realized we really do play with our phones while we watch media. Now, as that market grows, a new, similar market just burst onto the scene thanks to the HTC Mini+ — the second phone market.

The Ubuntu Edge, a smartphone that doubles up as as a desktop PC when docked, has unsurprisingly failed to meet its funding goal of $32 million. Canonical is fairly stoic about its failure, issuing a statement that $12.8 million is still the “biggest ever fixed crowdfunding campaign.” Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth, speaking to the Guardian newspaper, says that carriers and OEMs are still “definitely interested” in making mid-range Ubuntu-powered smartphones. For now, though, the dream of an ultra-high-spec superphone like the Edge, which doubles up as a desktop PC, is dead.

The consumer electronics market is converging. Where you once had a work computer, a home computer, a game console, a TV, a DVD player, and a mobile phone, in 2013 it is not unusual to simply have a laptop and a smartphone, or perhaps a smartphone and a tablet. This has led many people to believe, including me, that the PC will eventually die out, replaced by smartphones that are infinitely more portable and flexible. This supersession will be aided by the advent of upgradeable smartphones.

Thanks in large part to the Raspberry Pi, cheap little computers continue to be all the rage. Most of the time, though, these little computers aren’t products of the big name hardware manufacturers. Dell has apparently taken note of the tiny computer market, and has responded with the oft-rumored Project Ophelia, a $100 Android-powered USB stick PC that plugs into any monitor’s HDMI slot.

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